Now shipping: Sennheiser HD620S Closed-Back

What if Sennheiser made a closed-back headphone in the HD-6 series? Well, they did, and it is now in-stock and shipping for its starting price of $350 at B&H Photo and also at Amazon.

There at Amazon you can find it in “Used – Like New” condition for $300 by marketplace seller “Video & Audio Center” (California chain of A&V B&M stores).

Sunday: Sennheiser Accentum ANC/BT Over-Ears for $170 AC

Good until Sunday May 19 in 2024 at 11:59pm eastern time, B&H Photo is offering as one of their deals du jour the new condition Sennheiser Accentum ANC/BT wireless closed-back over-ear headphones for $170 after automatically-applied add-to-cart coupon. The headphones are available in two color options.

Why buy these over the many other hundreds of options? There’s plenty of forums, blogs, vlogs and such to answer these questions 🙂

Sunday: Sennheiser HD560S for $130

And we are baaaaack with a limited time deal, good until 5/5/24 at 11:59pm eastern time [or earlier if it sells out], B&H Photo is offering the new condition wired open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 560 S headphones for $130.

PS: under the “Accessories” tab over there you can find many ideas on how to complement it, eg $8 Apple Lightning headphone adapter.

Sennheiser HD 58X Jubilee for $139 w/FS

For a limited time only, Massdrop is offering the new condition wired open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 58X Jubilee for $139 with free US shipping. They currently offer free standard US shipping on orders of $99+.

As to which Sennheiser to get, and/or which open back to get, there are hundreds upon hundreds of threads and blogs and vlogs and videos on the interwebs 🙂

Wedn: Senal SMH-1000 Mark II studio headphones for $60

Are you looking for a studio headphone that does not pretend to be something else and is very happy to be “just” a studio headphone? YES, headphones have thoughts and emotions and feelings too!

Good until Wednesday 2/7/24 at 11:59pm ET B&H Photo is offering, as one of their deals du jour, the new condition Senal SMH-1000 Mark II studio headphones for $60. The standard package includes two cables (coiled, straight), a storage box, a carrying bag, a 1/4″ adapter and a 2-year warranty!

Random Audio sale at Woot includes Drop + EPOS PC38X, Yamaha, Technics, Sennheiser, Etc

Just like that we’ve reached the 34th incarnation of the WOOT Random Audio sale. This instance runs until 2/7/24 at 11:59pm central time or earlier if sold out. Already two have sold out!

The headliner is mayhaps the new condition Drop + EPOS PC38X Wired Gaming Headset, going for $140 with up to three units per customer at the sale price. Comes with a two year Drop warranty.

On the over/on-ear headphones front, there’s options from Yamaha, Technics, Skullcandy and Beats. And there’s a 20-pack of Egghead lightweight school headphones for $30.

On the in-ears front, there’s AmazonBasics Wired w/mic-remote for $4 with a 1-year warranty. Up to three per customer. “Only” accessory is three pairs of eartip sizes. Only in quotation marks because how much can you expect for $4? 🙂

On the truly-wireless, there’s Sennheiser Momentum 3 for $120, Technics, JVC, Beats, Skullcandy, and more.

There’s even bone conduction from Aiwa and ShokZ.

AMONG the OTHER AUDIO (non-headphone) items, there’s all kinds of things, speakers, Bluetooth speakers, soundbars, receivers, turntables [there’s Daewoo and there’s “suitcases” and “vintages”] and all sorts of other things.

Thursday: Samson SR-850B Semi-Open Studio for $25

Budget semi-open studio headphones that are kinda of an homage to old school AKG? That’s the Samson SR-850-B, “B” stands for the blue color scheme (still mostly black), and it is on sale for $25 as one of the daily deals at B&H Photo good until 2/1/24 at 11:59pm ET or earlier if sold out.

Given the price it is not a surprise you only get a 1/4″ adapter in the box, but you also get a 2-year warranty!

And as fate would have it, almost seven years ago we posted a text and pictures unboxing of this model, but in the black color scheme.

Samson SR350 Closed Over-Ears (SE) for $10

All the other headphone blogs try to find creative reasons to convince you to buy $1000+ headphones and DACs and amps and DAPs. We do the opposite! Ten Dollars! That’s all you pay for the new condition Samson SR-350 closed-back over-ear wired headphone in the “Special Blue Edition”, running as a daily deal at B&H Photo until 1/24/24 at 11:59pm ET or earlier if sold out. You even get a 1/4″ adapter and a 2-year warranty 🙂

The same per-unit price also holds for the 3-pack and the 10-pack. Yes, this could be the default birthday and Xmas present for all 🙂

Sennheiser HD 650 for $250

One could write a small book trying to sort out the various Sennheiser open-back over-ear headphones. IF of ALL the options out there you have settled on the wired open-back over-ear HD 650, it is currently, for a limited time, on sale for $250 at B&H Photo thanks to an automatic “add to cart” type of a discount.

Speaking of B&H and Sennheiser, a number of other Sennheisers are on sale as well, including the HD 560S going for $150 (same price at Amazon as well).

Sennheiser HD 280 PRO w/$10GC for $79

For a limited time only, B&H Photo is offering the new condition wired closed-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 280 PRO studio headphone for $79 with a bonus $10 B&H Photo email gift card! Yes, this good old headphone refuses to go away 🙂

FREE AudioQuest Dragonfly Cobalt w/$750+ purchase

Good until 11/30/23 (or earlier if stock is depleted), Headphones.com, the shopping side of the popular YouTube channel, is offering a FREE AudioQuest Dragonfly Cobalt USB DAC/Amp with purchases of $750+ in new and open-box products too!

TO GET the FREEBIE
Do NOT add the Dragonfly manually to your shopping cart!

Add $750+ of products, new condition and/or open-box to your shopping cart, and the Dragonfly will auto-magically appear in your cart as FREE!

There is no coupon code to enter!

One thing to note, from the text of the email it is not 100% clear whether the $750+ must be from a single item, or a combination of items. Play with the shopping cart and see what happens.

Sennheiser HD 650 for $250 [limited time offer]

It’s a Feast Of Choices in open-back Sennheiser headphones these days. If of all the choices out there you have settled on the HD 650, good until Saturday 11/18/23 at 11:59pm eastern (or earlier if sold out), B&H Photo is offering the new condition wired open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 650 headphones for $250 after an “add to cart” type of an instant coupon (no need to type anything in).

Note that B&H observes the Sabbath, so online ordering is paused between Friday PM and Saturday PM – check their website for the exact times.

Rolling Stones edition: V-Moda Crossface 2 Wireless for $70

Good until Saturday 11/11/23 at 11:59pm ET or earlier if sold out, B&H Photo is offering the new condition V-Moda Crossface 2 Wireless in the Rolling Stone edition for $70. This is available in two options, “Classic Licks” or “No Filter”.

The “Exoskeleton case” is the star accessory that is included standard in the package.

Ultrasone x Manfrotto crazy bundle for $650

Good until Saturday 11/11/23 at 11:59pm ET, this crazy Tripod x Headphone bundle is back at B&H Photo for $650. For this you get:

+ Ultrasone Performance Series 880 wired closed-back over-ear Headphones

+ Ultrasone SIRIUS Bluetooth Adapter for Performance Series Headphone

+ Manfrotto 504X Fluid Video Head & MVTTWINMA Aluminum Tripod with Mid-Level Spreader

30% off coupon on Monolith AMT, M1070(C) and M1570C Planars

A coupon promotion until 11//16/23 at the Monoprice website features an extra 30% off on orders of $50+ using coupon code EXTRA30 on select Monoprice audio products, headlined by some of their headphones:

+ AMT headphone drops to $700

+ Planars M1070 open-back and M1070C closed-back drop to $280

+ Planar M1570C closed-back drops to $420

+ a couple of other consumer headphones, various speakers, audio cables, stands, and speaker wire are among the other eligible items

Sony MDR-7506 Studio Headphones for $70

IF you add to have this to your collection [or replace worn out copies], as a benchmark of sorts, good for the next three days or so, you can have the new condition wired closed-back over-ear Sony MDR-7506 studio headphones for $70 at Woot. These are new condition, up to ten pairs per customer, with a 90-day Sony warranty. A drawstring pouch is included. These come with a hardwired coiled cable. No mic/remote, but a 1/4″ adapter is included.

These are part of a Woot Plus headphone sale good until 11/4/23 at 12am central time. It includes the Philips L3 for $100, B&O Play, Lenovo Yoga, Philips H9505 ANC, a Skullcandy ANC, and a couple of more items.

Monolith M565C Planars for $200, AMT for $900, IEM for $1

A Halloween themed sale at Monoprice brings us, among other things, the new condition wired closed-back over-ear planar-magnetic Monolith M565C for $200, the Monolith AMT (Air Motion Transformer) headphones for $900, or for the same price you can buy almost 900 “Premium” (product name, PID 18591, 1-button mic/remote) IEMs at $1.04 each 🙂

Various other products are on sale including cables for all sorts of things.

Refurbished Philips X3 open-back for $80 [no balanced cable]

These are open to all customers, they are not part of the Prime Deals!

If you don’t need the balanced cable and you are comfortable with refurbished headphones, the open-back over-ear wired Philips Fidelio X3 is offered for $80 by PhotoTech on Amazon. Per the customer reviews there, the balanced cable is NOT included in the refurbished package, even though the listing says it is included!

IF you want the balanced cable, the new condition Philips X3 is offered by Amazon actual for $140.

OR you can get the Philips SHP-9600 that hovers around $70 (depending on seller) in new condition OR around $50 as refurbished

KOSS Open-Back Big Prime Days sale [also regular sales]

Counter-headphone-culture darling KOSS is also participating in the Big Prime Deals during October 10-11 in 2023 with the good old Classic PORTA PRO going for $27.60 and the KPH-30i-RB going for $21. As fate would have it, I purchased the classic Porta Pro almost exactly ten years ago!

But the Koss Amazon store also has a few on sale that are not part of the Big Prime deals – meaning anyone can buy them, not just Prime members:

+ Koss Porta Pro Utility On-Ears for $25

+ Koss Porta Pro Black On-Ears for $30

+ Koss Porta PRO Limited Editions for $35 – either the “Black Gold” or the “Rhythm Beige”

Sennheiser at Big Prime Days includes 599 SE Open and 450BT SE Closed for $80 each

From the audiophile perspective, the headliner of the headphone deals during Prime Big Deal Days running October 10 and 11 in 2023 is a 16-item Sennheiser headphone sale that includes:

+ HD 599 SE open over-ears for $80
+ HD 600 open over-ears for $285
+ HD 660 S2 open over-ears for $427

+ HD 450BT Special Edition bluetooth over-ears for $80
+ HD 450BT Bluetooth over-ears for $95
+ Momentum 4 Bluetooth wireless for $300
+ RS 175 RF-wireless for $171

+ various truly wireless (obviously!)

Hifiman HE-R7DX Closed Over-Ears for $89

If you are curious about Hifiman’s non-planar (dynamic) closed-back over-ear headphones, for a limited time, Massdrop is having a sale on the new condition Hifiman RE-R7DX closed-back wired over-ears for $89 with a 1-year warranty and 30-day returns. This is an “in-stock drop”, it will ship typically within two business days of ordering. The only included accessory is a TRS adaptor.

FOCAL BATHYS w/FREE Energizer Qi Powerbank for $699

Despite the name, you cannot use in the bath 😉 With that out of the way, we have a bundle promotion for a hype headphone, yes, now Bluetooth/ANC headphones are getting “normalized” by some audiophiles 🙂

Adorama is including for FREE the Energizer Qi wireless power bank with the purchase of the new condition FOCAL BATHYS for $699.

The headphone itself comes with a rigid case, audio and USB-C cables and 2-year warranty.

Monoprice sale includes $1 wired mic/remote earphone [also: M1570C Planars for $420]

If you are wondering why I often post Monoprice deals is because they organize their offers in a simple way that is fast to post and fast to read/scan through to see if you are interested in anything 🙂

Which brings us to another limited time sale, a MEGA SALE (LOL) that starts with headphones, headlined by the wired closed-back planar-magnetic over-ear M1570C for $420 with free standard US shipping. Yes, a very special price 🙂

Move over Chi-Fi, here comes Mono-Fi! The sale also includes a $1 (actually $0.99) wired earphone with mic/remote even [free shipping on $39+ orders]. You can buy as many as you want. Yes, a fun stocking stuffer. Or the only gift for those who misbehaved during the year 😉 As of the time of writing it averages 4.4 out of 5 based on 274 customer reviews and it has a handful of answered questions as well.

I remember buying it a long time ago, but I recall nothing else.

B&H Photo two-day BILD Expo sale with 170+ options

New York City’s iconic B&H Photo store is celebrating 50 years in business and as part of the festivities they are having a two-day special sale running until Thursday 9/7/23 at 11:59pm ET.

The sale includes 170+ headphones including the very popular with the iSheeple AirPods MAX for $480 [MAX = over-ears in Apple speak].

In terms of the general population, the headliner is the new condition BOSE 700 UC ANC/BT with USB bluetooth module going for $249. Remember, if you are an audiophile, Beats and Bose, they break my bones 🙂

On the more audiophile front, the sale includes:

+ V-Moda Crossfade 2 Wireless (Rolling Stones) for $100

+ HEDD Air Motion Transformer for $1499

+ FOSTEX T60RP RP Stereo for $250 after clip-on coupon

+ Audeze LCD-XC closed planar kit with the Grace m900 headphone amp for $1763.10

+ there’s also a BIG Sennheiser sale with fifteen options that includes the HD400S closed over-ears for $50, the famous open-backs HD600 and HD650 and HD660 S2 for $300 and $400 and $500 respectively, the open HD599 Ivory for $120, the IE600 and IE900 IEMs for $600 and $1200 respectively, and various others, including of course bluetooths.

+ Astell & Kern AK ZERO1 Universal In-Ear Monitors with 3.5mm Cable for $529

Open Box Headphones including open-box Focal Elegia for $282

If you prefer buying open-box headphones because they have the benefit of the manufacturer warranty, as of the time of writing, Adorama is having 241 headphone options in their open-box category including models from Sennheiser, Focal, Hifiman, Westone, and such.

Among others, the closed-back open-box Focal Elegia goes for $282.

You can use the various filtering options over there, by manufacturer, by sub-type, by price-range, and such, to filter them further…

Massdrop Coupon: $20 off $100+ gets you HE-R7DX for $79, HD-58X for $130, HD-6xx for $180, HD-560S for $200

Oh dear, we have fallen behind on our postings! But we have a round-up type of a post today!

First up, the Massdrop website has launched a $20 off coupon on orders of $100+, coupon code WHATSYOURMAJOR entered over there. This runs until 8/27/23.

This drops [no pun intended, really!] the HD-6XX to $180, the HD-58X Jubilee to $130, the HD-560S to $200, the HE-R7DX closed to $79 (if you buy something else that costs $1+ to get the pre-coupon order total to $100+) and so on.

The aforementioned headphones are all listed and featured in the coupon promotional page.

There’s other headphones as well, along with earphones, DAC/amps, headphonalia accessories, keyboardalia of course, and such. Remember, if you want accessories that cost under $100 each, you can still use the coupon code if your order total is over $100, eg multiple units of the same accessory, or different accessories, or accessories + headphone or keyboard, and such. Any combination that gets your order total to $100+ in eligible items!

Monoprice coupon ends today!
Monoprice too is running a limited time coupon code on select audio products (those listed in the aforelinked promotional page), use BIG30 to get 30% off on orders of $50+. Coupon ends 8/17/23 at 11:59pm pacific.

OOPS, I just realized I posted this coupon earlier in August 🙂

As usual, their shopping cart decides on which products quality. The listed products include some of their bluetooth headphones, Monolith DAC/amps, the M1070C planars, and such.

Monolith Speakers sale
A separate promotion, for a limited time, kinda their deals of the day/week or so, they have three Monolith speakers on sale, with the all-important free standard US shipping, because unlike headphones, speakers weigh more than a few grams 🙂

+ Monolith Encore T5 Tower Speaker for $90
+ one speaker

+ Monolith Encore B5 Bookshelf Speaker for $50
+ one speaker

+ Monolith Audition T4 Tower Speaker for $130
+ one speaker

Prime Day 2023: Top Selling Over-Ears

Today (July 12 in 2023) is the second and last day of the 2023 incarnation of Prime Day!

OVER EARS
If you are curious what’s happening in the world of headphones, both in terms of offers and in terms of what others are buying, here are the Top-Selling Over-Ears over there.

As you can expect, the list is dominated by Beats, Sony, Bose and various budget brands such as this well-reviewed (4.4 out of 5, 13,290 ratings) KVidio bluetooth over-ears for $20 in five color options. Despite the price, it has Bluetooth 5.3 which makes you wonder why some of the big audio brands are still on Bluetooth 4 while charging an order of magnitude more for theirs 🙂 It folds, plays via 3.5mm as well, promises up to 65 hours, USB-C, etc!

The first open-back headphone in the list appears at #31, it is the Sennheiser HD 599 SE for $80, a pretty good price, thus the high chart position ~ considering the normies buy cheap and Beats and Bose and Sony and JBL and Apple proper and Anker and such 🙂

Sennheiser is also at #37 with the HD 450SE bluetooth over-ears for $80. And that’s it for the audiophile name-brand products in the Top 100. One open back and two Sennheisers 🙂

ON EARS
The On-Ears category is more of the same, with Beats and Sony and JBL and cheap brands dominating among the name-brand products. Yes, the good old Sony ZX-110 for $10 is charting high at #10. I never got around to writing a review for this, but I believe this headphone was tuned (intentionally or not) for usage in coffee shop background noise 🙂

A few of over-ears also appear in the second half of the Top 100, [see meta note below], the Sennheiser HD 350 BT, the Bose QC 45, the Beats Studio 3 🙂

At #79 we find another old friend, the lightweight Panasonic RP-HT21. Per the Amazon listing, I bought this almost exactly ten years ago!

And shortly after that we have another lightweight, the good old Koss KPH-7 for $6 in the black color scheme. This one I bought eight years ago.

Meta: On the Lists
Before you freak out looking at the list, note that Amazon’s categorization is a big mess, you will find non-canon products (eg truly wireless and such) in the listing. There’s too many 3rd-party sellers listing their products everywhere, intentionally or not 🙂

That’s why I’m not mentioning the open-back category, it’s fully of kinda bone conduction and random truly wireless 🙂

Philips X3 Open Over-Ears for $140

This offer is open to all Amazon customers! A 3rd-party seller (Phototech) is offering the new condition wired open-back over-ears Philips Fidelio X3 for $140 with the order fulfilled by Amazon, so Prime members get free 2-day shipping.

Amazon’s own price is higher. Phototech is a frequent seller of the Fidelio line.

As to which one of the Fidelio X-series headphones to get, or whether to get them, well, head on over to your favorite headphoolia websites, forums, blogs and vlogs for never-ending discussions 🙂

Prime Day 2023 is here with surprise Sennheiser hot offers!

Prime Day 2023 is here and there are five pages of Headphone deals including the usual suspects of popular with consumer options like Bose, Beats, Sony, AirPods and such.

But the big surprise of the day is a Big Sennheiser SALE including:

+ open over-ear HD 560S for $150

+ open over-ear HD 600 for $283~

+ open over-ear HD 660 S2 for $400

+ open over-ear HD 599 SE for $80

+ closed over-ear HD 450 SE Bluebooths for $80

+ also various truly-wireless and a couple of RF-series TV headphones

+ IE 200 In-Ears for $100

+ to purchase most of the offers above, you must be a Prime Member, thus the Prime Day name
+ if you want to buy any of these offers, fear not, you can jump in and buy anything you want as long as you start a 30-DAY free TRIAL of Prime!

Tuesday: Denon AH-MM400 Closed Over-Ears for $129

Happy Independence Day to all and especially fans of wood material type of headphones! Good until 7/4/23 at 11:59pm eastern time (or earlier if sold out), one of the deals of the day at B&H Photo is the new condition wired closed-back over-ear Denon AH-MM400 Reference headphones offered for $129. The “Reference” is part of the model name 🙂

It comes with two cables and a case and an adapter. They have five customer reviews over there, three of them from audiophile-sounding custaomers – they mention Chord Mojo, Fidelio, Fostex, Fiio, AH-D600, Oppo, etc 🙂

Monday: V-MODA Crossfade 2 Competition Edition for $109

Good until Monday June 26 (2023) at 11:59pm eastern time, or earlier if sold out, as one of its deals du jour, Adorama is offering the new condition V-MODA Crossfade 2 Competition Edition headphones for $109. This is a bundle that includes “shield customization”.

Among other things included in this bundle are a customization voucher (to get your custom shields printed), a BoomPRO mic, an ExoSkeleton case, a SpeakEasy Lightning DAC/amp, and assorted other small things (1-button cable, clip, adapters, etc)…

72-hour sale: Shokz, AU TW, Senal Studio headphones

Every few months, B&H Photo creates a special 72-hour sales party they call the MEGA Deal Zone. This features almost all of the daily deals of the last few months. All of them available for purchase at the same time. There are nearly 1500 options and you can buy as many as you like!

In the Headphones section they include, among others:

+ Senal studio headphones, $45 for the SMH-1000, $50 for the SMH-1200
+ these are homages to the good old Sony MDR-7506/V6 type of headphones

+ Polsen HPC-A30 Mark II studio headphones for $15

+ Shokz swim-type bone conductions

+ various AU-sounds truly wireless

+ sale ends Thursday 6/23/23 at 11:59pm ET or earlier if sold out

PS: unrelated to the above, but I didn’t want to create a separate blog-post for this, one of the Tuesday 6/20/23 Kindle ebook daily deals is the ebook “Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius” by Harry Freedman for $2. This averages 4.7 out of 5 on 161 customer ratings as of the time of writing. It is 258 pages, October 2021, from Bloomsbury Continuum.

Sat: AKG K240 II Studio headphones for $60

Good for Saturday June 3 in 2023, Adorama is offering, as one of their deals of the day, the new condition semi-open over-ear AKG K240 Mark II headphone for $60. There’s plenty written about these and the Mark I in the audiophile-phool forums, including endless Austria debates. I’ll leave all that fun to you 🙂

Sennheiser HD 400S Closed Over-Ears for $50

If you are a fan of thicc earpads, the closed-back over-ear wired Sennheiser HD 400 S are on sale for $50 at various authorized dealers until 5/20/23 or earlier if sold out, including Adorama and B&H Photo and various at Amazon

I haven’t seen or touched this particular model, but we have here a text and pictures unboxing of an older model, the HD 4.20 S 🙂

Tue: Ultrasone 880 Closed Over-Ears + BT Adapter + Manfrotto Tripod for $700

Here at this blog we specialize in the not-normal, or as they say on the radio, it’s not your normal paranormal 😉

Case in point, for Tuesday May 16 in 2023, one of them B&H Photo deals du jour is a curious Manfrotto x Ulrasone bundle for $700. Yes, Manfrotto makes tripods for photography, video, etc.

For that price you get:

+ Ultrasone Performance Series 880 Closed Over-Ear Headphones
+ Ultrasone SIRIUS Bluetooth Adapter
+ Manfrotto 504X Fluid Video Head & MVTTWINMA Aluminum Tripod with Mid-Level Spreader